


Deluge

by Helholden



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-02-18 17:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2356394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia visits a comatose Peter in Eichen House. She wouldn’t even be here, but they need answers. Answers that, Derek admitted quite reluctantly, only Peter Hale could give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Latch

* * *

 

“Are you sure about this, Miss Martin?”

 

Lydia blinks, her mind surging back to the present. She is in the hidden supernatural wing at Eichen House, standing near the threshold of a door across from Dr. Fenris. He looks at her expectantly. She realizes he is awaiting her answer. His question, posed to give her a way out, hangs in the air heavy on its fine thread.

 

She swallows past the dryness in her throat and shakes her head. There is a prick of moisture at the back of her eyes; it stings. Anxiety fills her being. As much as she wants to say _no_ , Lydia finds her tremulous voice speaking otherwise.

 

“Yes,” she says. It’s against her better nature, but if she had been listening to her better nature, she wouldn’t be here in the first place.

 

Dr. Fenris doesn’t look surprised. He bows his chin in acceptance and opens the door.

 

They walk into a room with plain walls and two beds. The bed next to the window is empty, but the other one is occupied. Her heart seems to seize for a moment before fluttering nervously in her chest, though it may very well all be in her head. There is much she has experienced that is all in her head. Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart anymore.

 

Lying prostrate beneath a white blanket is Peter Hale, his arms positioned at his sides above the neatly folded coverlet.

 

He looks like a corpse.

 

Peter is motionless, his eyes are closed, and he appears to be simply asleep. After a moment of staring, Lydia realizes he is actually breathing, but they are shallow breaths. She doesn’t step forward at first. Lydia hesitates, fists clenching at her sides. After what Peter Hale did with Kate, securing Lydia at the school under the trap of a Berserker while they drove to Mexico to kill one of her best friends, Scott McCall, all she can find in her veins is a temporary rage that is quickly soothed over with disappointment and a wave of distress.

 

Some part of her had hoped, though maybe it hadn’t fully believed, that Peter could do better. She had seen him do better. She had seen him fight alongside Scott once, but he had turned on them. He had turned on them, just like Stiles had said he would do.

 

Stiles, it seems, was the only one who had any sense among them.

 

However, Lydia doesn’t feel any hatred. There is no hate for Peter Hale. She’s used all of that up by now, and there is simply none left. Lydia thinks it might be a part of growing up, and it might be. Where there once was begrudging respect and wary trust, there is now an empty sadness that fills that space. The bridge is burned, but it still remains—smoking, charred remains, and she might could walk it again, but she also might be burnt in the process. That is the risk she came here to take.

 

Lydia wouldn’t even be here, but they need answers. Answers that, Derek admitted quite reluctantly, only Peter Hale could give.

 

“Miss Martin?”

 

Her fists unclench, nails having bitten into the skin. It hurts like a sting afterwards. She flexes her fingers and steps towards the bed.

 

For a moment, Lydia just stares at Peter, her heart beating in her throat.

 

“May I have a moment alone?” she asks.

 

“I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone with a violent patient, Miss Martin,” Dr. Fenris answers. “Even one who is in a coma, and especially when I know you are here specifically to wake him up from it. He is restrained to the bed, but if he breaks them . . . ” Lydia glances down. Sure enough, there are thick restraints bound across his wrists and tied to the bedframe. She shakes her head.

 

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

 

The words shock even her, but Dr. Fenris is unmoved by them.

 

“As sure as you sound, I’m still not willing to risk it. I hope you understand.” He motions for the guards beyond the door to come into the room. They enter, closing the exit behind them to prevent an escape. The men take their places on either side of the bed, giving Lydia only the bare minimal space needed to complete her job. It’s awkward with so many people watching her. At least last time it had been a friend. This time it is different.

 

She inches closer, leaning over the bed. Peter remains immobile and unaware of her presence. Lydia feels her discomfort creep up on her as she reaches out with her hands, having to place them on either side of his face. It helps her to concentrate her powers towards his mind as she places the tips of her fingers against his temples. Her face burns hot, though she is not sure why.

 

A few seconds pass in which it seems nothing happens, and then she makes a connection and the floor surges up towards her as the walls and the ceiling melt away. It wasn’t like this with Deaton, but Deaton wasn’t driven mad against his will, nor was he tortured, and he went in willingly—and Lydia has not been sure what to expect with Peter. It’s violent and sudden, but she breaks through, and then the connection snaps, and she finds herself falling, falling, falling. The sensation of the floor surging up towards her was not one of fantasy, but real, and Lydia hits it as a scream rips through the air.

 

“Secure him!” Dr. Fenris orders.

 

Lydia pushes herself up onto her elbows, the screams only getting worse. They grow shrill and unsteady, echoing off the walls in a cacophony of madness.

 

“ _Sedate him now!_ ”

 

Lydia hears the struggle, and she manages to sit upright. Her head is still swimming. When she sees the two guards shoving Peter back down onto the bed, she realizes they are hurting him. The look on his face, the terror in his eyes, causes her to stand up as quickly as possible, but it makes her light-headed.

 

“Stop,” Lydia demands. “You’re hurting him—”

 

“He’s a dangerous criminal, Miss Martin, and he’s going to hurt us if we don’t—”

 

Lydia doesn’t listen, though. This had seemed their only answer for him at the time, but now Lydia regrets it, even though she hadn’t been a part of the decision to put Peter here. Treating him like an animal just because he had acted like one isn’t going to solve anything, though, and right now, he probably doesn’t even understand what is happening to him.

 

She shoves past Dr. Fenris and makes it to the head of the bed. Peter is shaking and flailing like a madman, and there is no way to make eye contact. “Peter—” Lydia tries, and then she feels someone grabbing her arm. “Peter, listen to me, it’s Lydia—get your hand off me! Let go of him! Would you just _listen_ to me?”

 

For one still moment, the guards seem to be paying attention to her.

 

“Let go of him,” Lydia insists calmly. “Let me try. He’s still strapped. He hasn’t broken them.”

 

Both guards look to Dr. Fenris. He is disheveled, but he glances between the three of them and finally nods his head. “Fine,” he agrees over Peter’s wailing, “do it your way, Miss Martin.”

 

She offers him a weary expression of thanks and turns back to Peter. To be quite truthful, Lydia isn’t sure what to do. Peter’s fight against the restraints continues, but his screams and wails have fallen between choked sobs as he stares upward at the ceiling, bleary eyed and unfocused. His fists clench and he pulls against the restraints until his hands and arms turn ghostly white, veins popping out over the muscles, and then he grits his teeth so hard that Lydia fears he might swallow his own tongue.

 

Quickly, Lydia places her hands on either side of his face and turns him towards her. His eyes remain unfocused, though, unseeing despite her face before him. “Peter,” she says. “Peter, you need to listen to my voice. You need to listen, and you need to follow it. Focus. Come back—” When she sees the white foam at the corner of his mouth, her heart surges into a panic. If he starts having a seizure—

 

Lydia does the only thing she can think of without planning. She recalls the soothing voice of her grandmother and songs from her childhood, and then she takes Peter’s cheek into one hand as her other hand runs over his forehead and through his hair, and she begins to sing. She doesn’t have much of a singing voice. In fact, she couldn’t hit a note if her life depended on it, but Lydia keeps her voice low and soft. He’s the only one that needs to hear her, and the tone is all that matters. A soft, soothing tone will reach where words cannot, and so she strokes her fingers through his hair and sings very softly. It’s a children’s tune. There isn’t much to the lyrics, but her voice. Her voice is all that matters.

 

As the last line leaves her lips, there is immeasurable silence in the room. There is no more screaming. No more wailing. Lydia blinks away her shock, and then she looks down at Peter. His face seems frozen, shocked as well, bordering terrified—until he blinks and fresh tears spill out of sore eyes down dried tracks on his skin. He turns his head towards the pillow, and Lydia realizes a moment later his back is shaking—silent sobs out of sight, a broken, unhinged man waking up from a terrible nightmare.

 

She wonders for how long as a bright flash of flame licks at the corner of her vision, the smallest glimpse given to her when she entered his mind.

 

“You’re safe now,” Lydia finds herself saying as she looks over at Dr. Fenris. The words aren’t for Fenris. He understands, nodding and turning away from her. He steps out, but the guards stay.

 

 _For safety_ , she hears Dr. Fenris’s voice echo back at her from earlier.

 

It’s awkward, and in many ways very uncomfortable, but Lydia continues to cradle Peter’s head in her hands, one just against his cheek below his ear, her thumb making idle tracks, and the other in his hair. If someone had told her before today that she would be in this situation, she would have laughed at them. She might have even glared at them like they were crazy or rolled her eyes at such a ridiculous notion. Not Lydia Martin, comforting Peter Hale.

 

Eventually, even the sobs subside until his steady breathing is the only thing filling the air.

 

For now, the questions will have to wait. Lydia isn’t sure how long it might take, nor how long it might be until Peter Hale is his normal self again— _if that’s even possible_ , she concedes silently. She isn’t sure just how much damage has been done to him, or how deeply it has run. Lydia has never seen him like this before. She hasn’t seen him scream like that. She hasn’t seen him cry, and she certainly has never seen him sob like he’s just been broken into a million shards of uneven glass. No glue, she thinks, can put something like that back to the way it was before.

 

The vision of a flame licks behind her eyes again as she closes them, and she strokes her thumb through his hair, lightly grazing his scalp.

 

Lydia wonders if, this time, the fire hasn’t finally burned everything out of him—and if this isn’t just a shell of the man left behind at last. She will try to reach him later when he has had time to adjust. Lydia recalls pushing Meredith to her limits with too many questions too soon and too fast. She won’t make that same mistake again.

 

Lydia ignores the strange dissonance of her situation and picks a new tune to hum softly.

 

When she runs out of songs, then they’ll talk.

 

 


	2. Incongruency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, so I originally wrote the first part as a standalone, but then a comment by Bee got me to thinking about a continuation, and this happened. I am posting it under the first one because this is almost a direction continuation of the first one, and it makes more sense if it's read together with the first.
> 
> There will also be a part three. And it may involve a record player.

* * *

 

The room is filled with immeasurable silence.

 

Lydia sits in a chair against the wall, shifting idly as her foot begins to tingle with sleep. There is a few feet of space between the chair and the bed. She twiddles her thumbs to pass the time. Occasionally, she checks her phone to see exactly what time it is. There is no service inside the institution, and it’s been two or three hours since she arrived here. Long enough for Dr. Fenris to come by twice and check in on her progress. Long enough for the guards to start taking breaks, leaving only one of them behind at a time.

 

Peter has not said a word.

 

Right now, he lies on his back, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. He is as still as stone. At some point, when Lydia had run out of songs, she had to disentangle her arms from his head and slowly pull away from him. He had fallen still ever since, his face half hidden by the white cotton pillowcase. Sometime after that, he had turned his head upright and remained in that singular position like a statue.

 

He has not moved since.

 

Lydia had refused to be the first one to speak because she didn’t want to push him, but now she is worried that this is getting her nowhere. On top of that, she is also afraid to speak. Lydia fears saying his name will get her a blank reaction. She fears Peter may not remember who he is, and his silence, so uncharacteristic for someone so in love with his own voice, grates on her nerves and makes her grind her teeth.

 

Finally, she gets up from the chair and paces a few feet back and forth. Wringing her hands together, she ends up approaching Peter and sits down on the minimal bare space at the edge of the bed, her thigh brushing the tips of Peter’s fingers. She can feel his leg against her lower back as well.

 

Her closeness may incite the guard, but she doesn’t care. Lydia needs a reaction from someone in this room, or she’ll fall asleep from boredom.

 

Hesitantly, she reaches out—her hand hovering just above Peter’s hand. With a slow and deliberate motion, she lowers it down until they touch.

 

She knows it may be dangerous, but she curls her fingers just underneath his palm and holds his hand.

 

What startles her the most is how his hand reacts—still at first, but then the fingers curl under hers, cupping back faintly—and she looks up at him briefly enough to see him lowering his gaze from the ceiling, but she can’t make out the look in his eyes at all.

 

“Hey, that’s close enough!”

 

Lydia turns her head to the guard, glaring at him.

 

“I’ll decide what’s close enough, thank you,” she replies snidely and turns back to Peter.

 

His gaze is already dispassionate again, looking at the window this time instead of at her. He took the moment as a distraction to avert his eyes, and his hand is loose beneath hers again. She should feel disappointment maybe, but she feels hope. That little moment told her all the truth she needed to know.

 

Peter is still himself, she realizes.

 

Lydia squeezes his hand and leans forward to get closer to him. “Peter?” she asks softly.

 

He is still looking out of the window when Lydia feels his hand begin to tighten, and she pulls her fingers free before he can crush them. In retrospect if he really wanted to crush them, Peter would not have given Lydia time to pull away from them, but he did. He just wanted to scare her. Hopefully, he might have thought, it also would have made her leave.

 

His fists clench and so does his jaw.

 

“Why,” he asks, voice rasp from misuse or maybe from screaming. Likely, both.

 

Lydia is looking down at her fingers and rubbing them when she pauses. Raising her eyes to his face, she tries to figure the reasoning behind his question.

 

“Why what?” she asks.

 

“Why are you here,” Peter elaborates further, rolling his head until he faces her.

 

Lydia thinks of the reason and, immediately realizing it could shut him off from her in his highly guarded state, she decides it is better if she waits on that. She thinks of smiling and being kind to him, but also realizes that Peter would see straight through the façade. Lowering her gaze to her lap, Lydia tries to think of another reason to tell him for why she might have come here to wake him up from a coma full of terrible visions and horrible dreams, or whatever else Valack might have shown him.

 

“I heard about where you’d gone,” she says, still rubbing her hand. Lydia thinks about her next words carefully before she says them out loud. “I wanted to see you to make sure you were okay.”

 

“You’re a horrible liar, Lydia,” Peter says, and she looks back to him just in time to see him looking away. “Telling stories doesn’t become you.”

 

“I’m not ‘telling stories,’” Lydia bites back.

 

Peter rolls his head back to her, narrowing his eyes. “You want my help,” he says quietly. His eyebrows lift upward, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “Or someone does, and you’re here for them.” The look leaves his face, his eyes going cold. “The answer is no,” he says flatly.

 

Inwardly, Lydia fumes.

 

She presses her lips tightly together, biting down and debating what to do next. If he puts up a wall, then none of it will work. Lydia won’t get through to him to get him to help save lives because he’s locked up in here, and it’s all because of them. It’s Peter’s own fault, but Lydia feels sympathy for him and yet she doesn’t know what to do to get him to change his mind.

 

“There are people _dying_ —” she finds herself saying, her voice trembling.

 

“Let them die,” Peter interrupts her easily, as if he is commenting on the weather outside. “People die everyday.”

 

Lydia is horrified. She exhales sharply. “How can you say that?”

 

“Very easily,” Peter tells her, glancing over at Lydia again. “After all,” he adds, narrowing his eyes, “I tried to kill your precious Scott.”

 

“Why?” Lydia asks, her tone solid this time.

 

Peter rolls his head away, grinning. There is something almost lazy and drunk about the gesture. Lydia wonders if it’s the medication or something else. “Oh, now _you’re_ the one asking me questions . . . ” he says, sounding amused.

 

Lydia opens her mouth to say something else, but the door to the room opens up and she looks over as three different guards she hasn’t seen yet walk in the room. One of them, she notices belatedly, is holding a syringe. Peter sees them, too, and he begins struggling against the straps on his arms. “No,” he says, panic surging unwillingly into his voice. Lydia whips her head back to him, taking her eyes off the guards. Peter fights the straps hard. “No,” he repeats, “no, no, no—”

 

The guards reach him, two of them holding him down as he really starts to fight their hands on him.

 

“ _No!_ ” he screams, fury and pain and fear all in the one word. “NO!”

 

Lydia gets up from her seat. “Stop it,” she says, barely finding her voice. “Stop it, please—”

 

Peter rears up and tries to head butt one of the guards, but the man grasps him by the neck and shoves him back down onto the bed. Lydia sees Peter’s face turn red as he tries to gasp for air and the guard with the syringe preps his arm for an injection. Peter tries to growl, and Lydia wants to hit the guards, tell them to get them off of him, but she’s afraid if she does that it’ll hurt Peter in the process. She is frozen in place, not knowing what to do.

 

The needle goes into his flesh and depresses, and Peter turns rigid all over at the substance flooding his veins. His fingernails dig into his palm, the veins bulging on his arms and neck as his head neck strains backwards into the pillow and his back arches rigidly. When they are done, the guard pulls the needle out, and it takes a moment before Peter loosens under their grasp.

 

They let him go and step away. Lydia looks at him as his head lolls to the side, and as the guards leave without another word or explanation, Lydia hears Peter holler in a slurred voice at their backs as he lifts himself from the bed what little that he can. “ _Go on_ ,” he slurs, “go on an’ run before I _tear you to shreds!_ ”

 

The door closes behind them, and Peter falls back to the bed, a strangled noise emitting from his throat.

 

“What was that?” Lydia asks, her voice barely a whisper.

 

Peter looks like he doesn’t want to answer her, but he does, maybe half out of the persuasion of whatever they put inside of him. “ _Wolfs_ bane,” he slurs. His head is moving in all directions, like he can’t seem to lock his eyes down on anything in the room or all of it is moving for him. “More wolfsbane, always wolfsbane . . . ”

 

He strains against the straps one more time, and then he opens his mouth to roar in pain at the ceiling as he lifts himself from the bed. Peter’s voice cracks, and he falls back down, gritting his teeth as his muscles tense up and then loosen again. Lydia slowly approaches Peter until she is standing beside his bed and looking down at him, her fingertips resting on the edge of the mattress. He loses himself, then, for a moment.

 

“ _Letmego_ , please,” Peter slurs, turning to look up at her. He raises his eyebrows as his eyes shine and he tilts his head back. “Letmego, letmego . . . ”

 

It takes Lydia a few seconds to realize the shine in his eyes are a build of tears.

 

They don’t fall, though, not even when he blinks.

 

Peter squeezes his eyes shut and turns away, coming back to himself. He pulls against the straps again, a futile gesture, growling before whining and falling back down. He has not quite given up, and yet a part of him has for now.

 

Lydia slowly makes a move to sit down on the small open space at the edge of the bed. Very gently, and hesitantly, she places her hand on top of his. Peter falls still beneath the touch.

 

“I’m sorry,” Lydia says, “that I couldn’t stop them.”

 

“Why are you sorry,” he asks her, the words still slurring slightly. His eyes don’t meet hers.

 

“Because no one deserves that,” she adds softly. “Not even you.”

 

Peter’s jaw tightens visibly, and he still doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t say anything, though, and Lydia finds them in silence once more. She stays like that for a little bit, rubbing her thumb over his hand, but eventually, her finger stills and she pulls her hand away.

 

As she gets up from the bed, she hears Peter call out in a slur, “Where are you . . . where are you going?”

 

Lydia pauses halfway to her purse. _Maybe this is progress_ , she thinks. She picks up her purse and turns around to face him. She isn’t going to stay just because he asked that, but it’s good to know he at least sounds panicked by the idea that she might leave and not come back.

 

“I’m tired,” she tells him. “I need to get home and get some sleep.”

 

Peter stares after her as she goes to the door, calling for Dr. Fenris. He shows up soon enough, and Lydia is sure to make her demands clear.

 

“I want to see him in his own room next time,” Lydia states firmly, “and when I come back, I don’t want to find him in a coma again.”

 

Dr. Fenris looks surprised, but he nods his head. “All right, Ms. Martin,” he says. She only partially smiles at him, and then makes her way past Dr. Fenris through the door. “Have a safe night,” Dr. Fenris calls, and Lydia hears Peter calling after him, “Wait . . . wait, Lydia! _Lydia_ _!_ ”

 

She keeps walking, though, her chin held a little bit higher, and she doesn’t stop.

 

 


	3. Hypothetical Thinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, originally, this ending was going to be a little bit shorter than how it turned out, because I expanded upon it with a sudden idea I had a few days ago. But I don't want to spoil that idea before you read it, so. I hope you all enjoy. ♥

* * *

 

When Lydia comes to see Peter a second time, he is in his own cell, pacing slowly in front of the shatterproof glass that divides his cell from an outer observatory room for visitors and doctors. They gave him a name in advance, so that he could decline or accept the visitor. Lydia knows because Lydia bothered to ask after the receptionist at the desk paged two separate people—Dr. Fenris for approval and someone else, unnamed, to inform them of Lydia’s request to visit.

 

Lydia bothered to ask because she wanted to know if he would be in for surprise when he saw her face—or if he would know it was her before she even got there, giving Peter time to formulate a reaction to her.

 

Peter is good at planning in advance, so Lydia decides to be extra careful in how she talks to him this time.

 

Of course, this visit is different from the last. With Dr. Fenris’s approval, Lydia was given permission and clearance to access the zone of preternaturals. Without him, she doubts they would let her in today. Given that the wing isn’t supposed to exist, Lydia is sure most of them aren’t aware of it except for a select few. After all, upon giving Peter’s name, the receptionist looked at her funny as if the name didn’t ring a bell. That was when Lydia mentioned it would require Dr. Fenris’s approval—as Peter was a special patient under special care.

 

Lydia hopes he will be more inclined to help her than before, betting desperately on her requests from her last visit that gave Peter more comfortable and solitary lodgings and better treatment.

 

When she steps into the room, Peter looks up at the sound of her sandals on tile and smiles a small knowing smile for her. It makes Lydia pause briefly. The door closes behind her, the guards leaving her alone with him for privacy.

 

Peter’s smile grows wider, his eye gleaming.

 

“Lydia,” he says, lilting her name on his tongue.

 

“Peter,” she returns in a stern voice, heading toward an empty chair in the center of the room across from the shatterproof glass that divides them. Lydia sits down in it, lowering her bag to the floor.

 

Peter remains standing on his side of the glass.

 

“So nice of you to come visit me again, Lydia,” he says. The smile isn’t there on his face anymore, but his eyes still gleam. “They’ve been nicer to me since your last one, and—” Peter pauses, glancing over his shoulder at a record player on a small table behind him. “Your gift helps to drown out the screams of everyone else stuck in this hellhole.”

 

Lydia wants to make a smart comment, but she holds back. “I’m glad you like it, Peter.”

 

“Oh, I do,” he says cheerfully. Peter looks right at her. “I like it very much.”

 

“I wanted to ask you,” Lydia begins warily, “if you’d be more willing to help me this time—”

 

“Of course,” Peter answers before she can finish. “I’ll help you if you help me.”

 

A sinking feeling fills the bottom of her stomach like a cold, heavy weight. “Help you with what?”

 

“Well, you see,” Peter begins, gesturing to the record player. He cuts himself off momentarily, huffing in amusement with a grin on his face. “It plays music, but what’s music without a little dancing? I can sing along, but . . . ”

 

Lydia stares in disbelief. She knows what he is saying, but she is so stunned she can’t formulate the words to respond. Peter sees the look on her face, and he stills as a smile appears to smooth out his features.

 

He holds out his hand toward the glass wall.

 

“A dance,” Peter adds slowly. Purposefully.

 

“The guards won’t let you,” Lydia replies. She could’ve said anything else in the world—from denying him to outright laughing at him, but she chose to blame it on the guards instead. Lydia feels her pulse beat rapidly. She holds up her chin a little higher. “You’re dangerous.”

 

Peter’s eyes shine. “Not to you.”

 

Lydia leans forward. “You tried to grab me in Derek’s _loft_ ,” she reminds him. “If it wasn’t for Allison—”

 

“Okay,” Peter agrees, laughing somewhat, “so I got a little carried away—”

 

Lydia leans back in her chair, crossing her arms and huffing. “You’re unbelievable.”

 

“Coming from you, sweetheart, that word doesn’t have the effect you’re looking for,” Peter says in a low voice, looking more collected than he did a moment ago and staring unnervingly at her. He holds up a single finger. “One dance. That’s all I ask, and I’ll help you save whatever annoying little friend has gotten themselves into a predicament this time.” Peter lowers his hand. “It’s such a small price to pay, don’t you think?”

 

Lydia blinks, trying to sort out her thoughts. Inside, it’s turmoil. She wants to say no, but then there are more important things at stake than a stupid dance.

 

“The guards won’t agree to it,” Lydia tells him quickly, shaking her head. “They won’t let you out of there.”

 

Peter holds up his finger again. “Leave that to me,” he says.

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

Peter crooks a finger, gesturing for her to come closer. Lydia hesitates, then sighs and gets up from her seat to walk up to the glass. Peter points at the pin pad on the door. “I know the code,” he says in low voice. “You just punch it in, and the door will unlock.”

 

Lydia’s eyes flare. “I’m not doing that.”

 

“Oh, it’s a valid code,” Peter assures her, “and the alarm won’t go off.”

 

Lydia cocks her head to the side, widening her eyes. “That’s _not_ why I’m not doing it. I’m not putting in someone else’s code. I’ll get the guards and—” As she turns around, Peter calls out to her.

 

“They won’t let you,” Peter says. “They won’t open the door. They won’t allow a dance, and I won’t help your friend.”

 

Lydia pauses and closes her eyes, exhaling a heavy breath. She turns around to face him again. “What’s to stop you from running?” she asks bluntly.

 

Peter nods his head toward the door she came in through from the hall. “That door’s locked. They always lock it, even if no one’s in here but me. Precautionary method.” Peter shrugs. “I guess they’d rather have the guests eaten than the orderlies.”

 

Lydia can’t believe the words that are about to come out of her mouth, but she says them anyway. “You’re serious?”

 

“Not to alarm you,” Peter says, “but deadly, deadly serious.”

 

Lydia debates it, but comes to a conclusion fast. “Fine,” she agrees. “What’s the code?”

 

Peter smiles again—that same, unnerving smile.

 

Lydia walks up to the keypad on the door of his cell, thumb poised at the ready. When she looks at him, Peter holds up another finger. “Wait just a moment,” he says, and he excuses himself to go to the record player. “Can’t have a dance without a song,” he calls out to her, and Lydia rolls her eyes.

 

When he returns, he tells her the code and she punches it in. It works, the green light coming on and a _click_ filling the air. Lydia pulls on the door, and it opens.

 

She stands in front of it, the glass door only parted a few inches. Peter cuts his eyes at the door, and then back at her. “I can’t walk out a halfway open door,” he says smartly, and that’s when Lydia relaxes. If Peter isn’t trying to force his way out, then she doesn’t have to worry about him.

 

Lydia steps back, opening the door further, and Peter walks out with a slow pace to his step. She lets go of the handle, standing there, not knowing what else to do. As he turns to face her, his eyes lock on her, and he holds out his hand. Lydia swallows, reaching out to accept it.

 

Their fingers curl together, and as his thumb suddenly grips her knuckle, Lydia realizes her mistake.

 

Peter yanks her to him, binding her in one arm, and slams a fist into the keypad behind him to trigger an alarm. “So sorry about this, sweetheart,” Peter says near her ear, sounding almost sympathetic. With his claws suddenly out at her throat, Lydia gasps. She cranes her head back to try and get away from the pinch of his grip, but Peter drags her to the door and she is forced to follow his footsteps.

 

They unlock and open the door immediately, but Peter is right in the way of the doorway. They can’t block him in the room.

 

“Let her go!” one of the guards demands, and Peter tightens his grip enough to make Lydia gasp again.

 

“Let me pass,” Peter counters in a slow calculating tone. “You’d hate to have her blood all over the floor, wouldn’t you?”

 

Dr. Fenris breaks through the commotion and freezes at the sight before him.

 

“Peter,” Dr. Fenris tries to reason, “you don’t want to do this—”

 

“No, you’re right,” Peter says. “What I want is to get out. No one has to be hurt. All you have to do is part the way, and when I’m safely out of here, I’ll let her go.”

 

“How can we trust your word?”

 

“You don’t have much of a choice, do you?” Peter asks him.

 

Dr. Fenris tightens his jaw, looking between the two of them. Lydia wants to nod her head at Dr. Fenris to let him know it’s okay if he agrees, but Peter’s claws are too close for comfort and she can’t formulate the words for the thick lump in her throat.

 

“Let them go,” Dr. Fenris finally announces. The men are hesitant, but Dr. Fenris raises his voice and speaks more firmly. “Let them go!”

 

The guards back away, giving Peter an access route to take. He makes sure not to put anyone at his back, keeping Lydia between himself and the guards. When he is safely through a door, Peter runs, forcing Lydia to keep up with him. He does not pick her up so he can run faster, and Lydia knows it’s because it will remove his claws from her throat and make it safer for them to take him down.

 

No one else stops them, though as they pass by others to an escape route, people gasp and stare and move quickly out of the way.

 

Peter gets them outside the building onto the grounds before he finally does the unthinkable and removes his claws from her throat. He picks Lydia up, startling her, and throws her over his shoulder—and he runs.

 

He runs faster than she ever thought werewolves were capable of running.

 

Lydia squeezes her eyes shut, feeling sick to her stomach at the jostle combined with his speed. She _feels_ it when they rush into the trees, and she _feels_ it too when Peter leaps over a log and lands heavily on his feet, only to keep tearing through the brush. Lydia isn’t sure how much time has passed before everything finally comes to a standstill, even though her stomach and brain are still roiling from the journey.

 

Peter lowers Lydia to her feet, but with her head swimming, she topples forward and he has to catch her. Lydia looks up at him, head lolling, and she sees concern in his eyes. Bile rises up in her throat and causes her to pull back from him. She hobbles, nearly falling again, but Peter catches her a second time to prevent it from happening.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was a rough journey.”

 

“You’re _sorry_?” Lydia can’t believe her ears. She yanks away from him again and falls, landing on her bottom, her right hand taking the brunt of her weight. Peter doesn’t try to stop her this time, knowing full well she doesn’t want it.

 

“Yes,” Peter snipes back. “I am capable of feeling remorse, contrary to popular belief.”

 

“Peachy,” Lydia says. “Next time I’ll remember that when your claws are at my throat.”

 

“I’m hoping there won’t be a next time.”

 

Lydia cuts her eyes up at him. “There’s always a next time with you.”

 

Peter’s eyes change as he lifts his chin. “I had to get out,” he tells her. “I wouldn’t have actually hurt you, Lydia. Ripping your throat out wouldn’t have gotten me anything but a wolfsbane bullet in the back. Do you _really_ think harming you would have been beneficial to me?” Peter huffs, shaking his head as he looks away from her. “You were just my incentive to get out.”

 

“Always thinking about yourself,” Lydia snaps.

 

Peter is silent.

 

“You can go home now, Lydia,” he finally says, turning away from her. He only makes it a few steps before she calls out to him.

 

“And _how_ am I supposed to do that?” Lydia hollers, getting up from the dirt and brushing it off her legs. “You’ve dragged me all the way out into the middle of nowhere! I don’t even know where I am!”

 

She sees Peter pause, rolling his head, before turning around to face her again. “I _could_ carry you home,” Peter replies snidely, “but something tells me you don’t want that.”

 

“Carry . . . ” Lydia is too stunned to even finish the sentence. “Why would you . . . ”

 

“Cat got your tongue, Lydia?” He walks up to her, invading her personal space. “Yes, _carry_ you. I’m in a hurry, and I don’t have time to walk.”

 

Lydia remembers being afraid of him once, but now all she can manage is a silent rage. A part of her wants to hit him, but the urge is gone as quickly as it came.

 

“That’s it?” she asks quietly. “You’ll just carry me home after having your claws at my throat?”

 

Peter’s face falls as if he is just now realizing something. “You don’t really think I’d hurt you, Lydia, do you?”

 

“You’ve hurt me before.”

 

“Different times,” Peter says. “Different measures.”

 

“You still used me—”

 

“Only to get _out_ ,” Peter repeats in exasperation. “Look, Lydia, I don’t want to leave you in the forest by yourself, but if you insist—”

 

“Fine,” she spits out. “Take me home.”

 

Peter stares in silence at first. It takes him a moment before he puts his back to her and kneels, and it takes Lydia another long moment before she realizes he means for her to climb on his back. She does so with a strong level of hesitation, putting her hands on his shoulders and getting close enough before he grabs her below the knees and hoists her up. Peter stands easily, and there is little time before he takes off at a maddening speed and Lydia has to wrap one arm around his chest and hook the other over his arm to grasp his shoulder, holding on for dear life.

 

When he reaches a spot some distance away from her backyard, Peter lowers her down and she wobbles on her feet again due to the dizziness in her brain. Lydia stands behind him for a moment still, holding onto his shoulders, and waits for the feeling to pass.

 

“Do you think you can walk home from here?” Peter asks her, and Lydia looks up. He doesn’t turn around. The back of his head is the only thing in her view.

 

Slowly, Lydia removes her hands from his shoulders.

 

“Yeah,” she tells him.

 

Peter turns around after that. Lydia gazes at the silhouette of his head in the dark and wonders a million things at once.

 

“Where will you go?” Lydia asks.

 

She can see the small twitch of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. “Now, if I tell you that, you’ll run off and tell Scott.”

 

It’s true. Lydia swallows past a lump in her throat. “Will you go back with me?”

 

“To Eichen House?”

 

“Yes,” she says.

 

“You already know the answer to that, Lydia,” Peter answers. He looks around, wary of his surroundings. “As much as I’d love to stay and chat—”

 

Lydia reaches out for his arm, grabbing him. “Please, don’t hurt anyone, Peter.” He looks down at her hand, and then her. “Promise me you won’t hurt anyone.”

 

Lydia waits for an answer, but he doesn’t give one. Peter only stares back in the silence. His eyes scan her face before he makes a split second decision, swooping in to kiss her.

 

Her eyes fly open, heart hammering in her chest, but she doesn’t pull away. With his hand in her hair, Lydia suddenly finds herself responding—if only for a brief moment before shoving him off of her. Her surprise hits her hard, but Peter looks unaffected by it. She notices, only just barely, the quick way in which he breathes afterwards. Her eyes are angry; they say all that she doesn’t say out loud. _Don’t do that again_ is one of them. He listens to it.

 

“I don’t make promises, Lydia,” Peter finally says, chest rising and falling visibly beneath his shirt.

 

“Then make me a deal,” Lydia pushes, unwilling to give up. “You’re true to your word when it comes to those.”

 

He turns his head just slightly in the darkness, the light catching on his eyes. “A deal?” he asks. “What kind of deal?”

 

“You don’t hurt—or _kill_ —anyone,” she says, “and you can come to me for help with whatever you need, and I won’t tell the others.”

 

“As tempting as it sounds,” Peter answers, stepping a little too close for comfort, “I can’t accept your offer.” He reaches out, causing her to step back involuntarily, but not far enough. His fingers glide along her ear as a shiver passes through her shoulders at the delicate touch. “Coming back here could be very bad for me, and you have a life to live, Lydia. You don’t want to be bound to someone like me. I could mean that chivalrously, but let’s be honest here. I’m very selfish.”

 

He draws his hand away, but Lydia grasps his wrist—harder than she intends.

 

“Then help me before you leave. Please.”

 

She expects him to give her a look of annoyance, but Peter looks almost proud.

 

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll help you—since you so graciously helped me escape.”

 

Lydia glares at him, but at least she’ll get this one positive thing out of it, so she doesn’t complain.

 

Peter answers her questions quickly, and to the best of his knowledge, before he adds, “And you can tell them _all_ that came from me. As long as you promise to share the looks on their faces when you do.”

 

“How will I do that?” Lydia asks him. “If I never see you again?”

 

“I never said you wouldn’t,” Peter replies, and then he grins. “Until next time.”

 

Lydia opens her mouth to respond, but Peter turns away and rushes off into the trees. Her head whips around to follow him, but he is long gone from sight. All she hears is the _crack_ of twigs beneath his feet and the _swish_ of branches as he passes swiftly through the forest ahead.

 

Lydia stares until all she can hear is the silence in his wake. She blinks, breaking herself of her reverie, and looks up at the sky above.

 

A full moon hangs low, and Lydia turns away from it to hurry home.

 

 


End file.
